8A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
THURSDAY,MAY2,2002
A scale sits in the rowing team's weight room on the third level of Allen Fieldhouse. The athletes, like rower Lauren Royall, Tulsa junior, weigh themselves after certain workouts to determine their power ratio, a measurement of strength in proportion to body size
BODY IMAGE
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"But that's totally the societal view: that a woman, a female, needs to portray the softer qualities," Branson said. "And being well-defined and muscular is not one of those."
Reynoldsknowssexual stereotypes do exist about female athletes.
"With lifting, some people don't want to get too big." Reynolds said. "They want to avoid the stereotype of the butch-type girl."
For Branson, that stereotype is irrelevant. She just wants to be able to compete at the highest level.
"There are certain things you need to be able to do, and I don't think bulk's too bad," Branson said, but even she had reservations.
“There is a limit on what I think's appropriate," she said. "You know you're kind of intimidating to the guys around you. Because that's normally who I hear the comments from. You know when you walk by and hear a guy sway that kind of stuff."
She never knows whether to believe him, but whenever Royall's boyfriend in Oklahoma comestose her he tells hers she looks thinner.
"I don'tknow if he's just saying that to be nice," Royall said. "He likes the idea that I'm rowing and that I'm staying in shape."
Professor Ann Cudd, the director of the women's studies
department, knows what it's like to be torn between athletics and how society thinks females should look.
She lettered in four sports, basketball, soccer, cross country and track, at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa.
"Their sport to some extent dictates what their ideal body image is going to be," Cudd said. "I mean, if you want to be really good at basketball, I'm sorry. You can't be a shrinking violet."
Not all sports result in the ideal feminine body, but the ones that do seem to be the ones people want to see.
Sullivan talks about the same issues in her course.
"People want to watch figure skating and gymnastics," Sullivan said. "And those are sports where women have become progressively smaller. So not only are these women expected to be excellent athletes, but they're also supposed to have big breasts, which is really pretty difficult to do. We see those images all the time though because of plastic surgery."
Cudd agrees that athletes who fit the feminine body image are the athletes who people want to see.
not the athletes, necessarily."
"We're only seeing beautiful women in those sports even if they're not the best athletes," Cudd said. "Or even if those sports are not the only sports women play. What men and women really want to see are the beautiful women and
Thus the Anna Kournikova phenomenon. Although she has never won a major tennis tournament, Kournikova is regularly featured in commercials, magazines and even music videos.
Sarah Bliss is a freshman diver on the Kansas swimming and diving team.
She started gymnastics when she was 3 years old and began competing in club gymnastics by the time she was 8. She took up diving in high school.
Bliss knows what it's like to compete in sports where being smaller is distinct advantage.
She stands 5 feet 1 inch tall. Her smaller body type makes it easier for her to flip faster.
Bliss lifts weights just like the swimmers and thinks the way an athlete's body responds to lifting depends on the body type.
"I bulk up," Bliss said. "But some others get defined. I'm more muscular because of gymnastics, but that's just the way we always been."
Ultimately, resolving the conflict between society's view of women and athletes' views of their own bodies is difficult for female athletes — almost as difficult as attaining the ideal body.
"What men and women really want to see are the beautiful women and not the athletes,
Haley has been swimming since she was 5 years old. Born into a family of swimmers, Haley's swimming background has been intense. She competed in the 2000 Olympic Trials
necessarily."
Ann Cudd director of women's studies
and has been to Senior Nationals.
Even Haley feels the pressure of having to watch her body. Her friends ask how she can ever eat knowing she has to walk around in a swimsuit all the time.
"We wear a suit everyday," Haley said. "Sometimes it's hard with that reminder. You don't want to get to practice and put on a suit and have it not fit."
Reynolds also admits being conscious of how she looks and trying to watch what she eats.
She tries to maintain a healthy diet because it's beneficial for performance. But there remains that underlying motivation that female athletes may never truly transcend.
"I try to eat healthy." Reynolds said. And then she added, "So I can look better."
Contact Brox at abrox@kansan.com. This story was edited by Anne Mergenmeier.
Royalll fill out a lifting chart after a 6 a.m. workout. Rowers use the charts at each practice to keep track of their weightlifting progress.
Kansas food industry gets poor rating
The Associated Press
TOPEKA—The bill of health given by state auditors to Kansas' restaurant inspection system is anything but clean.
restaurant inspection system. It's littered with reports of mouse droppings in prep areas, of infestations of flies and cockroaches, of food being held at unsafe temperatures for hours.
Almost one-third of Kansas restaurants did not get required yearly inspections in 2001, and others with persistent sanitation problems operated without fear of a fine, an audit released Tuesday shows.
"Is the food-service inspection program adequate to ensure that significant violations of state laws and regulations will be found? The short answer to this question is, 'No.' " said John Curran, one of the state auditors who wrote the report.
Health and Environment Secretary Clyde Graeber said the results were worse than he expected.
"The audit brought to light more areas, more problems than I felt existed or which I had knowledge of," Graeber said.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is responsible for making sure all of the state's roughly 12,000 food-service establishments are inspected at least once a year. State inspectors are responsible for examining about 7,000 restaurants, school cafeterias, caterers and food-service counters in grocery stores.
About 30 percent of the state's restaurants were not inspected as required in 2001, the state audit found.
The Department of Health and Environment has 23 full-time inspector positions, although three are now vacant.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends one inspector for every 250 establishments. The state, with one inspector for every 521 establishments, would need an additional 18 inspectors to meet that recommendation, state health officials estimated.
The audit also found that state inspectors did not always investigate consumer complaints within 48 hours, or within 24 hours if a food-borne illness was suspected — time frames set by the department's own guidelines.
In its response, the state pointed out that last year it investigated 99 percent of the complaints it received and that the year before it investigated 98 percent.
The health department said it tried to respond to all consumer complaints within 48 hours.
Auditors also found that state food inspector did not always follow up to make sure that serious food violations, such as food kept at unsafe temperatures or insect infestations, were corrected.
State regulations require that critical violations - those most likely to put the public's health at risk - be corrected in 10 days or less.
in a sample of 160 inspections, auditors found 114 instances in which at least one critical violation was left uncorrected at the end of the inspection. Of the 114, only six establishments had a follow-up inspection within 10 days, and two-thirds weren't scheduled for a follow-up.
"Without follow-up inspections, the department can't ensure that critical violations are getting corrected," the audit report said.
Expires May 19,2002
Thinkers, Doers Movers & Shockers
Need a magic wand to graduate on time?
Well, it may not be magic, but the summer session at WSU can do some pretty incredible things—like make an entire class disappear in as little as two weeks. It's not smoke and mirrors, just an easy, convenient way to get ahead between semesters. And, as always, credits earned at WSU are easily transferable to KU. So, take summer school at Wichita State, and in the blink of an eye you'll be closer to graduation and still have plenty of time to enjoy summer before heading back to Lawrence.
Enrollment is now open,
Enrollment is now open so check out our Schedule of Courses on-line at www.wichita.edu/schedule or call (316) 978-3055 to get a copy by mail and to find out how you can register by phone.
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